Chapter 11: Food for Thought
Angela awoke to the sound of her alarm the next morning. She groaned and turned it off quickly. After sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes she looked around her room a little, confirming that what had happened wasn't a dream. She got up slowly and changed out of her night dress and into a set of her usual cloths, also putting on her shoes. She peered out of her room shortly; she could hear Crypto setting up the kitchen downstairs and also a pleasant, soft humming coming from Pox's room. She tiptoed across the hall and tapped on his door lightly before opening it a jar and cautiously peeking in, not wanting to stir a repeat of the day before out of the mistrusting Furon commander.
Pox was enjoying the morning; his mood had improved significantly since the day before. He was organizing some papers and didn't notice Angela creep into the room as he realized one of his precious documents was missing. He quickly looked over his desk and under a couple things, "Brains! Where did I put that? It was just here…"
"Um, excuse me?" Angela finally spoke, causing Pox to gasp slightly as she startled him a little; he quickly turned his chair around, "Oh A-Angela, good … morning."
"Sorry to bother you… Orthopox, but where's the bathroom?"
Pox regained himself, trying not to look like he was intimidated by her, "Oh i-it's at the end of the hall, to the left of the storage room."
"Thanks." she leaned down and picked up a paper off of the floor to the side of Pox's desk, "Is… this what you're looking for?" she offered it to him.
He blinked and took the paper carefully while watching her a little suspiciously, he finally looked down at the paper once it was in his hands, and it was indeed his missing document. "Yes," he looked back up "Thank you."
"No problem." She headed out of his lab and joined Crypto in the kitchen a little later, after finding the bathroom. "Morning Crypto!" She said as she entered the kitchen, putting her apron on.
"Mornin' cupcake." He smirked, watching her and almost spilling pancake batter before catching himself, "You sleep good?"
"Yes, thank you." She helped him set up the kitchen the rest of the way. "You know I was thinking I could help with dinner tonight."
"Oh? What'd you have in mind?"
"Pot roast would be good, we can start it and let it slow cook all day so it's done by the time we close."
"Hey good idea doll face, we've been ordering out since we got here."
"That must get expensive."
"Not really, when you make the pizza guy forget he delivered to ya it tends to save a lot of cash."
"Oh…I suppose it would. I'll go pick up the pot roast stuff quickly, I'll get back before we open." She grabbed her bag and headed to the store, buying the roast, a couple carrots and potatoes and arrived back at the restaurant just in time. She and Crypto prepared it and got it started in between orders from customers. When the restaurant became crowded she helped him by handing him ingredients and flipping pancakes, while he made eggs, in between delivering food. Crypto liked it when she took any spare time to help him in the kitchen, they worked fluently together and watching her from the side as she fried sausage made him all hot. As things slowed down she checked on the roast, "It certainly smells good, the customers think so too, they keep asking if we have a dinner menu they don't know about."
He grinned "Yeah it smells great but they're gonna just have to chew their waffles."
"Exactly, speaking of which, table 5 ordered 3 more of those."
"What? How many can he eat, he had 4 already."
"I don't know but if he's not careful he's going to pop a seam… or throw up."
"Ew, I don't suppose you'd know how to clean that up if he does?"
"That wasn't in my job description." she grinned, "He throws up and you're on your own spaceman." She grabbed a plate of bacon and eggs.
Crypto's eyes widened, "Tell him we're out of waffle batter!" he called after her as she left the kitchen, hearing her giggle at his comment just before the door shut.
When 5 o'clock rolled around Crypto and Angela tended to the last of the customers and closed the restaurant shortly after. They cleaned up the kitchen and then Angela checked on the pot roast, "Looks done, would you go get Orthopox please?"
"Sure thing." Crypto nodded and went up to Pox's room. The diligent Furon commander was finishing up his upgrade for the Disintegrator Ray when he heard Crypto come in but didn't take his eyes off of the delicate finishing touches. "Hello Crypto, I assume It's after 5, I heard the noise die down."
"Yep and we made dinner Poxy."
"Uhhuh." Pox said only half paying attention as he fit in the last piece. "There, done!" he leaned back a little in his chair, admiring his work, "I've been risking my fingers all day but your Disintegrator Ray will now do far more damage."
Crypto grinned, "Right on, can't wait to try it out! But first let's eat Poxy, c'mon."
Pox turned to face him "You mean downstairs?"
"Well yeah, that's where the food is."
"I'm not going down there! Those…er…small town monkeys know how to form mobs…with all sorts of sharp, primitive weaponry!"
Crypto stared at him in disbelief, "You gotta be kidding me…?"
"I most certainly am not! I don't know about you but I'd rather not be skewered with a pitchfork!"
"Pox this is Floodlight, Nevada not Rockwell, what's the REAL reason?"
"I… I'm just not comfortable going down there right now; I don't want to talk about it."
"Fine suit yerself." He waved him off and went back down to the kitchen, "Well he ain't comin' down, he says he's not comfortable with the idea so it's just you and me doll face." Which of course he didn't mind.
Angela shook her head though, "No it wouldn't be right of us to leave him out; if he won't come down here we'll go up there." She put the roast on a tray and handed Crypto some plates and silverware, "C'mon" she walked past him.
Crypto watched her, bewildered, "Buut…I thought we could eat together…?"
But she didn't reply, just headed upstairs. He frowned slightly but followed her with the dishes.
Pox heard them both coming upstairs and the smell of the cooked meat filled the air. He turned his chair around just as his room was suddenly invaded. Angela smiled at him, "Hello, dinner's ready."
A shocked expression formed on Pox's face as he witnessed her move a few of his books off of one of the tables and set the tray down on it.
He desperately looked at Crypto for an answer, "What is the meaning of this?" he was more confused than angry.
Crypto shrugged, "Apparently we're eating here." He handed Angela the plates and stuff as she served the food.
"In my lab? On my dissection table!?"
"Hey I'm just as shocked as you are." He frowned again.
"But…But."
"You've been working hard all day Orthopox" Angela said as she finished serving everything up, "Surely all that brain power requires you to keep your strength up." She offered him one of the plates.
Pox smiled a little, flattered at her comment, "Well… since you put it that way…" He took the plate carefully, "Thank you."
"Of course" She smiled too and handed Crypto his plate before sitting down with her own. Crypto was still pouting a bit that Angela hadn't wanted a romantic dinner for two and just dug into his food. Pox and Angela started eating too and an awkward silence fell over the group. Pox decided to get a better understanding of Angela's motives and subtly read her mind without her knowing it. He could find no indication of malicious intent in her thoughts, in fact he found that she was truly fascinated with them and felt very privileged to be with them. He felt a little better at that and finally broke the silence "Ahem, So, Crypto, are you planning on going out tonight?"
Crypto swallowed a mouthful of meat, "Yeah, probably, why?"
"If you do would you make sure to get some," he glanced at Angela "er, that "list" of things I needed."
"List?" Crypto asked, staring at him.
"DNA" Pox told him telepathically.
"Oh," Crypto said aloud, "that list, yeah I'll uh pick that stuff up."
"Thank you."
"Sure" he sighed, quiet for a minute before getting up, "I'm gonna go do that now." He set his plate to the side, having lost his appetite after losing a chance to put the moves on Angela. "See you guys later." He grabbed the upgraded Disintegrator Ray off the table and left the restaurant, leaving Pox alone with the attractive human female.
She didn't want Pox to be uncomfortable so she figured it might be a good time to get some of her questions answered as well as keep the silence at bay.
"Um, so you guys have numbers after your names…you said you were 14 and Crypto was 138? What does that mean?"
Pox blinked, a little surprised she was interested, "Over the eons Furons have learned to clone ourselves to obtain immorality to some degree. The number is our current clone. Crypto is a warrior and I am a fleet commander so consequently due to his job, and no small amount of carelessness, he has died several more times than I have."
"Really? That's incredible. What's that like… living forever I mean?"
"Personally I like it a great deal; it allows me to continuously expand my knowledge. Though I was only recently recloned, I have spent the last 20 years dead and trapped in hologram form after the Soviets destroyed my poor Mothership."
"I'm sorry to hear that." She sympathized with him, "Are you alright?"
Pox was unaccustomed to the sympathy since he received very little if any from Crypto over the years, but he did appreciate it, "Yes …now that I'm back."
"That's good." She smiled, finishing her food and noticing Pox was done too, "I should get these dishes washed so Crypto doesn't have to come back to them, care to help me?"
Pox looked a bit nervous at that, "Well…"
"I won't bite you, it's alright."
"…Alright." he gave a small nod, now that he'd read her thoughts and talked with her some he wasn't as worried about her using all the sharp kitchen utensils to murder him. He used his psychokinesis to pick up the dishes while she grabbed the tray and he followed her downstairs. She filled the sink with hot, soapy water while he looked around a little at the kitchen as his chair hovered near her. She began to wash the dishes and watched as Pox used his mental abilities to wipe the clean dishes dry with a towel and put them away without touching them. "So what did bring you to earth anyway? I'm sure it wasn't to flip pancakes, right?" She asked as she took the next dish Pox handed her with his PK.
He frowned slightly, "That's a bit of a long story and likely not one you'll enjoy."
"Tell me anyway." She insisted.
"Well, alright," he gave in, "While we Furons can clone ourselves with each cloning the information degrades. Mutations are starting to form and will only get worse till our species inevitably clones itself into extinction. Due to unregulated atomic weaponry our species also lacks the necessary genitalia to reproduce and so without a source of pure DNA our race is doomed."
"And that source is here on earth?"
"Indeed, yes, after destroying the Martians a Furon ship stopped here to uh…"let off steam" and after one thing lead to another Furon DNA was integrated into humanity's genome. Now there is a strand of pure Furon DNA in the brain stems of every living human. Our mission is to extract it so that our species can survive."
She finished the last of the dishes, "So wait…you…kill humans…?"
"Er…" Pox swallowed a little hard, sensing she was upset, he put the dish she'd just washed away, "It's …not …we don't have much choice, humans aren't exactly interested in volunteering it, there's really no other way."
"I…I see." She gulped, "S-so will you eventually kill me?"
"No! I-I mean…you're not a threat and uh, contrary to the name of the game we never really destroy ALL humans."
She gave it some thought "Well uh…there are a lot of humans, and I can understand that you have to save your people." A silence fell over her for a moment, but she found that there was really no way to argue, she also realized there was no possible way for her to ever be able to stop them. "I'm not…happy about it but, I…guess I can see where you're coming from. Do you…think maybe someday humans will volunteer the DNA and the fighting will stop?"
Pox thought it over, "I don't know…maybe, though I doubt Crypto would like that." He was silent for a moment, trying to think of some way to lighten the mood before speaking, "Let's…not dwell on this now. Why don't you tell me, about yourself? I hardly know anything about you other than your interest in aliens."
"Oh…sure." She forced a smile. She was still a bit uneasy, but she didn't like to think about negative things and she held a hope in her heart that one day the two races could agree and work together. She started a pot of coffee before sitting near him, "Let's see, well I grew up in a small community but I spent a lot of time on my Uncle Harold's farm. He raised mostly chickens and cows. We moved here after my Uncle got killed. My aunt Martha said he was murdered by a little green man."
Pox stared at her momentarily in shock, "…Harold and Martha Turnipseed?"
She nodded, "Yes, how did you kn—"a frown formed on her face "Was that Crypto?"
Pox gulped, "Uh… no, no of course not! I…read about it in the eh…papers, yes."
Her eyes narrowed, "Orthopox" she said sternly.
"Yes it was Crypto!" Pox sighed, "You have my sincerest apology…but in his defense the farmer did pull a shotgun on him first."
She sighed bringing her hand to her forehead, "That sounds like Uncle Harold. Crypto's just lucky that was a long time ago…and that I'm forgiving."
The coffee pot gurgled and she got up and put a cup together for them both. "After it happened my aunt was never the same, everything had to do with aliens after that. Though that is part of what got me so interested in them. It's strange; you guys sort of set me on a path to eventually come work for you all those years ago." She handed Pox his cup and he nodded, "It is intriguing how things like that can happen. Would you say it worked out for the best?"
She thought about it and nodded, "I'm pretty sure that it did in the end."
He smiled at that and they continued talking for a few hours. When Pox had to get back to work he let her accompany him and watch. As they spent more time together he became aware of her enchanting scent. She smelled of apple blossoms and vanilla and her voice was like music. Now that he had chance to appreciate her for who she was without Crypto around he had to admit she was indeed very attractive.
